Dual N-Back — Free Online Working Memory Training
Track a square and a sound at the same time.
- Working memory
- 5 min
- Hard
Dual N-Back asks you to hold two streams in mind at the same time — where a square appeared and which letter you heard — and say whether either one matches what happened N steps ago. It is the most studied working-memory task in cognitive psychology, and the one with the strongest claim to transfer beyond the game itself.
Play Dual N-BackHow it works
1Each turn: one square lights up and one letter is spoken.
2Compare with N turns ago — here N = 2, so look two back.
3Press Position, Audio, both, or neither.
How to play
- 1
Watch and listen
A square lights up somewhere on a 3×3 grid while a letter is spoken. Both happen once per turn.
- 2
Compare N steps back
At N=2, press Position if the square is where it was two turns ago, and Audio if the letter matches the one from two turns ago. Either, both, or neither can match.
- 3
Raise N
Start at N=2. When your accuracy holds above roughly 80%, move up. N=4 and beyond is genuinely hard for most people.
What it trains
Hold and update information while under load. Training on the dual n-back task has been linked to gains in fluid intelligence that scale with how much you train.
- Brain area
- Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
- Based on
- Jaeggi et al., 2008
Leaderboard
Weekly season resets every Monday. Scores show as N-5.
Leaderboard
Questions
What N should I start with?
N=2. Almost everyone finds N=1 trivial and N=3 overwhelming on a first session. Sit at N=2 until you can clear it comfortably.
What is a good dual n-back score?
Around 80% accuracy at N=2 is a solid first week. Sustained N=3 puts you ahead of most casual players; consistent N=4 is rare.
Does dual n-back actually make you smarter?
The honest answer is that it reliably improves your working memory for tasks like this one. Whether that transfers to general intelligence is still debated — Jaeggi's group found dose-dependent gains, later replications have been mixed.
How long should a session be?
About five minutes, daily. The research protocols used short daily blocks rather than long occasional ones.
